[stavros]

My issue with the article in general is that it undermines its own persuasiveness. It doesn't seem to say "giving birth sitting is better", or even "doctors wanted to have better visibility", but tries to cast it as a story of deliberate male oppression.

It's just unnecessarily divisive to try to turn this into a case of sexism, and I feel it takes away from the scientific angle of the article. Someone might very well dismiss the valid scientific findings as more about gender politics than science. It just doesn't seem to me like there's a need for the gendered slant.

[ekjhgkejhgk]

I agree with you. Whenever anyone says "oh this is actually the males doing XYZ" it reduces the persuasiveness.

It reminded me, I'm in an activist parents group and the other day a mom there was arguing that when the media uses the word "parenting" in the context of our focus subject, it's really a manifestation of the patriarchy keeping women oppressed (the implication that dads don't really parent, they just help the moms). There's loonies everywhere.

[Terr_]

I can imagine these two inverse outrages being deployed almost simultaneously:

* "When you call that parenting, you give unearned credit to men who aren't contributing, call it mothering."

* "When you call that mothering, you're letting men escape their duty to contribute, call it parenting."

Some sort of... prescriptive versus descriptive paradox, I bet it can be found in other contexts too.